We know car-based side hustles don’t always result in the profits that people envision, but one woman in New York took to social media to market her unique approach to the concept, and it took off. 29-year-old Sydney Charlet went viral on TikTok after she posted a video advertising her services as a car sitter. With the state of the economy in the nightmarish place that it is and the cost of living in major metropolitan cities higher than ever, it makes sense that people would turn to creative ways to bolster their income, but car sitting?
It sounds strange, and in most regions it would be totally unnecessary, but in the big bad city of New York, it’s working out great for Charlet. Her business of moving people’s cars around to avoid getting street sweeping tickets is booming. We’ve covered the chaotic nature of car ownership in New York City in the past, but some neighborhoods face street cleaning twice a week on each side of the street. With the risk of racking up parking tickets coming with such frequency, I don’t know how anyone manages to go more than a month without getting a ticket. I guess that’s why Charlet’s business of reparking people’s cars, or even just sitting in them to avoid the scourge of parking enforcement, is getting so much attention.
Street cleaning parking violations cost $65 in New York City
Charlet got laid off from her job on the West Coast and chose to move to New York City, but she still had a year left on her car’s lease so she was forced to bring it to the city where parking spots can cost $100,000. She told Fox 5 New York, “I heard from people that people sit in their cars during street sweeping and don’t move their cars unless the street sweepers come by.”
She decided to start marketing a service where clients text her business number with their location and the car’s coordinates, and as MoneyWise reports, “key handoffs are typically done through the building’s doorman, and Charlet documents everything by filming the car before she gets in and again when she leaves — her way of keeping things transparent and professional.” Sometimes she even sits in the car and officers don’t end up issuing tickets, and other times she moves her client’s vehicles to prevent them from getting a citation. It’s as simple as that. She told ABC News that she’s looking to expand her business, and that she now receives several applications and resumes from people who are looking to join her team. It sounds like a great gig to me, and props to her for her entrepreneurial success.
I knew that New York was famously unfriendly to car owners, but I had never heard of street sweeping happening twice a week, every week. Unsurprisingly, many New Yorkers struggle to keep up with the frequent sweeping schedule, as the city’s website says just over 10% of all the parking violations issued are street sweeping violations, and that it issued over 1.6 million of these $65 tickets in 2021.
@sydneycharlet THE CAR SITTER. Unemployment has me side hustling. Text me: 917-382-3787